The Royal Treatment

Netflix goes back to fairytale romances, the price and the poor girl in this odd little number filmed in Dunedin and Oamaru, New Zealand which are pretending to be the Bronx and some exotic land called Lavania.

Izzy is an Italian hairdresser in the Bronx who by mistake gets to cut the hair of Prince Thomas of Lavania and  is then hired with her two bffs Destiny and Lola to do the hair at the prince’s upcoming arranged marriage.  

You guessed it!  They all end up in Lavania and Izzy and Thomas fall in love.  

Cliché upon cliché there is little that is realistic here – simply an update of old fairytales.

Izzy has a definite Emily in Paris vibe believing she can bring compassion and change to a country she doesn’t know with her feisty determination which ignores the feelings of everyone around her.  

For her, the children in Lavania are victims that need to be cheered up and saved!  There are many other stereotypical figures from the batty Italian gran to the butler with a stern exterior and a rebel heart.  All very simplistic.

Hordes of Kiwi actors put on fake accents and Larnach Castle in Dunedin gets to play the royal palace in Lavania.

Laura Marano is okay in a Disney version of Emily way.  God, I miss her French boss Sophie who would cut her down in one second flat.  Mena Massoud did what he could with Thomas and really the only ones to come out of this with some credit are

Cameron Rhodes as the butler and Jacque Drew as the overbearing bourgeois future monster-in.-law.

  Plus the 2 bffs whose comic routine grew on me.  The rest was a sugary artifice.  I wish NZ would lend itself to better things than this.  Loads of continuity and credibility problems too!

1 star plus

Clemency

Released during the pandemic and acclaimed by critics, Clemency wasn’t a great hit with the public or with the awards ceremonies the following year.  Perhaps it was because it was set in a prison or because the lead was a black actress.  

A shame really as it is a very competent piece headlined by Alfre Woodard in one of her best roles as Bernardine Williams, governor of a prison which has a Death Row.

Another reason for its relative rejection may be the opening scene which shows the botched execution of a prisoner – harrowing indeed. After this event and a solid debriefing according to protocol, it’s on to the next execution and we follow Bernardine as she prepares for this.  It’s clear that the job is taking its toll on her and on her staff, the pastor wants to retire, her deputy is seeking a promotion to a prison without a Death Row, another official cannot be trusted to be part of the team on execution day.  At home, Bernardine’s marriage is cracking up and plenty of time is spent by her and staff in a local pub.

Meanwhile Anthony Woods, the next victim is awaiting his fate and lawyer Marty has exhausted all routes of appeal except for a last-minute pardon from the State Governor which is highly unlikely to come even if Woods’ case has mitigating circumstances.  

This is a film about extremism, about judgment and about excluding a humanitarian approach to life.  And the cost that those involved in upholding it pay.

Bernardine claims she has always treated such prisoners as humans all the way through but the system contradicts that.  She sticks to her script, reads out the protocols and steps of the execution to the prisoners in icy detail.  There is nothing humane or even human about this, however much the prisoner may deserve a strong punishment.  

Chinonye Chukwa, of Nigerian background, has given us a powerful and moving film with some excellent performances.  

Woodard, playing Williams in her restrained professional attitude, conveys the strain that her body is feeling and her last scene in the movie, wordless, is a masterclass in pain. Aldis Hodge is similarly impressive as Woods, largely silent but hurting.  

Wendell Pierce as the husband tries to vocalise the issues but again with limited success.  Richard Schiff as the burn-out lawyer is a picture of compassion and there is a superb one scene appearance by Woods’ ex-wife played by Danielle Brooks who gives us a life story in the space of a few minutes.

It may be a grim subject but this is another classic from Hollywood showcasing the shadow side of American life and a practice that needs to be curtailed for the good of all.  There are other alternatives.

4 stars plus

Glass Onion – A Knives Out Mystery

Second in a series by Rian Johnson of murder mysteries in the style of Agatha Christie updated to present times.  It also fits into the current genre of having a dig at the wealthy and stupid.  

Miles Bron (Edward Norton) is a financial whizzkid a la Zuckerberg, Musk or Bezos having made fortunes with his first company.  He has also helped many other famous people get what they want: Claire (Kathryn Hahn) is Governor of Connecticut, Birdie (Kate Hudson) is a former fashion model now clothes designer,

Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) is a The Rock style influencer and Lionel (Leslie Odom Jnr) is a top scientist.  They are his gang of friends and he invites them by means of a game to his island off the coast of Greece with its Glass Onion house

to play a murder game.  

Also present is famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and his former business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monae).  

She is on a mission of revenge as she has walked away from the company and was mistreated by the group in a court case when she sought a share of the profits.

The scene is set and takes some time to set up but sure enough a murder occurs, just not in the way expected.  A big mid-film twist adds spice and the story unravels more as a how was it done than a whodunnit.

Entertaining enough without really convincing.  Craig gets away with an overacted detective with a dodgy Southern accent and in this group it is the very competent Monae and the welcome return of Norton and Hudson that impress.

Still, in the end we don’t really care about anyone and it is simply a smooth exercise in a crime story.

3 stars 

The Wild Goose Lake

Very stylish film noir from China and a relatively new director Yi´nan Diao who wrote and directed this.  

Basically it’s the story of two or three days in a manhunt for an ex-prisoner called Zedong who mistakenly killed a policeman soon after his release when he was in the middle of a gang battle with other gangs of motorbike thieves.  

Set around Wuhan, it is beautifully filmed by Jinsong Dong, has some wonderful set pieces starting with the second scene which is a workshop on how to steal motorbikes and continuing with a variety of chase scenes, even one in a zoo.  

Diao plays with light and shadow a lot and with a slight sense of the absurd: one of the characters seems to live in a cupboard while another scene involves sex in a laundry on top of a washing machine in mid-cycle.

Perhaps the story and the depth of characterization is not so great but the way he frames the scenes, the way he uses the camera to observe and the stylistic and aesthetic effects are very good.  

Ge Hu as Zedong and Gwen Lui-Mei as the ‘bathing beauty’ who offers to look after him act well enough and there is a satisfying array of minor characters.  All of which, together with the scenery portray a modern view of the underside of China, that of crime and relative poverty.  

The streets are dirty, the buildings mouldy with damp and with old advertising peeling off them, people seem to live in dark squalid noisy rooms and even the local beach is hardly the Riviera.  

The portrayal of the bumbling police force is classic and perhaps explains why the film hasn’t been released I believe in China. Diao makes a lot of social commentary covertly and it works.

As a film it nods in the direction of many great directors like Wong Kar-Wai and may have little to add to the genre but it is made with flair and creativity and seems to represent present-day China well.

4 stars

Vesper

This comes from the team that made Vanishing Waves a few years back.  Would you believe Lithuania is the new Hollywood in Europe?  Well, maybe not but this strange dystopian sci-fi horror is a polished and thoughtful number which shows off technical prowess.

Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) is a 13-year-old living in a broken-down world.  She inhabits a hovel in a swamp looking after her invalid father and tries to advance her scientific experiments mostly related to helping plants grow.  

A big problem is that all seeds available to ordinary people have been genetically coded to last only one crop and only the rich in the citadels have real seeds and keep the vast majority of the population in poverty. 

There are also lost souls called pilgrims wandering around searching for scrap metal and others who are selling blood to the citadel people.  

The story here largely involves Vesper, Camellia (Rose McEwen), a girl she finds in the forest who is a Jug, or humanoid and who had been under the charge of a genetic scientist and also the threats to her from her uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan) who wants to use her for her blood and knowledge.

  Will Vesper and Camellia find freedom in all this?  Will Vesper be able to decode the seeds and revert their DNA to be useful for more than one crop?  

The special effects are impressive.

Despite not having a huge budget, there is a cute human-like box drone that represents the ill father and follows Vesper around, some rather startling flowers and plants that Vesper is growing and more than acceptable sparks flying in fight scenes. 

 Photography by Feliksas Abrukauskas is suitable for the grim moment on Earth.  But above all, it is the vision of Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper together with screenplay co-writer Brian Clark that make this a more than interesting and original work.  Which is nice to see from such an unexpected country.

3 stars 2 plusses

Destination Love

Wanted a break from the rather sad movies I’ve seen recently so chose this NZ-Canadian production that is pretty much Hallmark and infomercial wrapped into one.  

Set on Waiheke Island, which is everyone’s go to NZ venue these days, it is all about Madison, a workaholic accountant from San Francisco who decides to organize a wedding for her two best friends in a new venue set in a vineyard.  

The owner David had set the place up for his own wedding and now Ben and Lorri will be the first customers.  

Meanwhile Leon, the vintner is trying to launch his Merlot on the market.

I think the banal script (John Banas) and obvious product placement are what characterizes this most.  It is all very predictable and paint by numbers.  The cast is a Kiwi one and some pretend to be Americans quite effectively.

Anna Hutchison and Josh McKenzie do what they can with the main roles with McKenzie perhaps coming across as the more natural of the two. 

Zero dramatic tension, just publicity postcards and a lot of fairly unauthentic fussing around pre-wedding coupled with two people who can’t believe they’ve fallen for each other.  Pass.

1 star plus

Women Talking

Where do I start with this film?  Definitely different from the usual fare these days it is based on real events in a Mennonite community in Bolivia where the men sprayed the women with cow tranquiliser on a regular basis so as to rape and abuse them and then gaslighted the women claiming that it was their crazy imagination. Eventually several men were brought to trial but the practice had continued for a long time and affected over 300 women.  A book was later written on the story and Canadian actor-director Sarah Polley turned it into a screenplay which she herself has directed.

Set largely in a hayloft in a remote farm over a couple of days it has a real chamber piece feel resembling a stage play and although Polley gives us some outside scenes (supposedly Canada), the need to suspend belief on occasions and the sense that the characters are each being given their little speech or two contributes to the theatrical vibe.  

The outdoor scenes have a languid and outdated beauty reminiscent of a Terence Malick film, which is accompanied by a folksy rural soundtrack by Hildur Gudnadottir of all people (the Icelandic mood piece composer) and Luc Montpellier’s washed out semi-sepia photography.

And Polley has assembled a very good cast headed by an almost unrecognizable Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand in a small role.  

Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy play older women in the group very effectively.  Foy and Buckley

are especially moving but the fact that the director is an actor who knows how to give space to her leads must count.

So, what about the main point here?  The cinematic elements are present but does the basic premise of women talking for 100 minutes on whether they should stand up the men or abandon the farm work?  

Surprisingly it does but the lack of action and the amount of talk won’t please all the viewers and it is a type of movie you have to be disposed to and patient with.  Topics such as whether you have to forgive, whether there is a bad forgiveness, whether we have a place in heaven and whether boys are innocent or potentially evil all come up for debate.  

The discussions are rich but yes, there is a sense that we are being given a tour through the agenda of topics rather than seeing a more real-life and spontaneous drama. Strings are being pulled but in an expert way.  And the particular circumstances of this event allow us to use it as the springboard for a discussion on women’s rights more generally, such as what a woman should do faced with abuse inside a relationship.

Despite a few reservations, this is a generally very positive thumbs up for me.

4 stars plus

The Banshees of Inisherin

Set 100 years ago on an island off the coast of Ireland, this film by Martin McDonagh is beautifully conceived and executed.  

This is the story of Padraic (Colin Farrell), a simple crofter who wakes up one day to find that his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) no longer wants to speak to him, despite there being no apparent reason.

This action triggers a whole array of reactions not only in Padraic but also in the village folk and leads to some unexpected conclusions. As a simple story, almost of the fairytale or fable kind, Banshees is entertaining enough.  

The acting is excellent with Colin Farrell never better, Gleeson showing his class and Barry Keoghan as Dominic the village simpleton and Kerry Condon as Siobhan, Padraic’s unfulfilled sister both revelations.

  The landscape with the wild seas crashing against high cliffs, the green hills and the lonely sunsets are beautifully captured by Ben Davis and Carter Burwell offers a sympathetic soundtrack.

McDonagh’s screenplay is a gem of crackling local talk, comical and tragic at the same time.

And yet, beyond this there are layers to unpeel in this rich film.  There is the Ireland question.  The Civil War can be heard on the mainland but these islanders feel disengaged.  

There is the condition of living on the island, the small narrow-minded society ruled by the Catholic church and local gossip, where secrets lie just under the surface and often scandalously unattended.  

The policeman and the parish priest have a glib answer for most things being totally flexible when it suits. 

Part of the breach between the two men is caused by Colm’s reflection on his mortality and his life’s mission.  

What do we want to have left behind after we go?  And which is our place in the world?  Definitely a topic Siobhan and Padraic have close at hand.  

The struggle of man against nature, the relationship of men and animals all come into play.  And as a microcosm of life, this film invites us to consider Ireland itself and the world as well and the way that human beings misunderstand each other failing to respect the existence of the other.

A rich experience to savour, poignant sad and often wry this is one of my films of the year already.

5 stars

White Noise

This Noah Baumbach movie of a Don De Lillo novel from the 80’s has been acclaimed by critics for reaching the screen at all, given the complexity of the book.  It has been widely rejected at the box office despite starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. 

 I have to side a bit more with the public here as I found the film overlong and very inconsistent in pacing.  But yes, it does have some good scenes and an interesting message that would bear unpacking over repeated viewings if you felt up to that.

J.A.K. Gladney (Driver) is an academic running the Hitler Studies programme at an Ohio University in 1984.  

Babette, his wife (Gerwig) teaches posture and is addicted to some unknown pills causing some memory loss.  They live in an assembled family totaling 4 kids of different ages.  All goes well until an accident locally involving a train carrying petrol results in a toxic cloud covering the region and forcing everyone to evacuate.

The chaos of these scenes occupy much of the first half and middle of the movie and foreshadow more recent tragedies and the pandemic in both the lack of preparedness of the authorities and the reaction of the people – all the fake news and gossip now has shifted to social media.

The latter part of the film seems to focus on death, the reason behind Babette’s consumption of the pills

which leads to a strange shooting inicident in a motel, a clinic full of German nuns and a final scene over the credits which seems to be an ode to consumerism in the US.

Watching the film, we can see the connections and the use of these scenes to illustrate messages about love, death and consumerism among other things. But the film failed to convince me totally even though we know it is a satire.  

Some scenes: the banter in the household, a joint class given by Gladney and Elvis specialist colleague (Don Cheadle) and the escape through the forest from the evacuation camp are good fun. 

 Acting is fine.

It´s just that all told it comes across as a bit of a mess and a bit of an exercise rather than a coherent whole.

2 stars plus

Living

High class ´small´ film by Oliver Hermanus, South African director of Moffie, revisiting an Akiro Kurosawa film about a civil servant who given 6 months to live decides to change his life and do things he wants and believes in.  With a super economical and insightful screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, Hermanus sets the scene in 1953 London, a grey repressed city in full period of rationing.  

Williams (Bill Nighy) is the boss of the Public Works section of the Greater London Council, shown to be a monolithic and highly inefficient bureaucracy of the type that Britain was and possibly is still full of but somehow seems to avoid recognizing.  He is typical of the employees there, sitting on files and shifting paper from one stack to another.  When he gets his death sentence, he withdraws half his savings and goes to a beach town determined to learn how to live a little. 

 He meets a writer there (Tom Burke) who takes him on a wild night on the town and thus starts his transformation.

Returning to London he meets up with an ex-employee Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood) whose lively spirit during several small outings leads him to change his attitude to work and achieve something meaningful while he still has time.  

Bill Nighy is excellent in the lead role.  Understated and full of subtleties but still very much in his style, Nighy creates a memorable character bordering on the pathetic and yet a person for whom you feel compassion.  He has been living like a zombie as Margaret says and wants to change before it is too late.  

There are some lovely scenes, such as when he meets the writer, the singing of a Scottish folk song in a pub and the meeting at the funeral between Williams’ wet son and Margaret.

There are also some less convincing scenes such as the posthumous discussion between the newest protegee of Williams and a local copper

and at times the music can be a little intrusive.  Not sure if it’s the best performance by an actor this year but it is up there among the best and Hermanus continues to impress.

4 stars